


and the scars run together

by Gildedstorm



Series: make a fury of me [6]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Gen, I don't know what I'm doing send help?, an attempt at salvaging dark!jaesa's characterization, in which being an edgelord is a coping mechanism, sith counselling is never chill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-16 02:25:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11244411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gildedstorm/pseuds/Gildedstorm
Summary: Rkorya turned a padawan to the dark side and gained an apprentice. Jaesa had her life ruined and a new one offered in the same breath, and she took it.It takes them a while to realize that this story hasn't quite ended.





	and the scars run together

**Author's Note:**

> admittedly this is the fic I'm probably the most nervous about posting! namely because I made a lot of in character choices I ended up regretting heartily for a while in my playthrough, namely with turning jaesa and then finding out how drastically her character changed. I actually dropped the game for a while as a result, and it's been a painstaking effort to shuffle things around and come up with an interpretation of the situation that I could be okay with?
> 
> and then just write out that interpretation while acknowledging unpleasant truths and not taking away from jaesa's actual traumatic experiences and I'm not quite sure if I succeeded! but here it is regardless

“I’ve returned, master,” Jaesa declares, sweeping into Rkorya’s quarters. It’s one of those rare days when there isn’t some immediate crisis for the Wrath to handle, and the crew had already dispersed to carouse and shop, though she knows by now that they won’t stray far. She’s still giddy from her own use of this reprieve – the other apprentices staying in the sanctum are weak and boastful, puffing themselves up to cover their glaring flaws, and it’s a heady delight to lay them bare, turn each word into a knife to twist in the wound.

A shame she can’t go further, but her master has been exceedingly clear about what she can and can’t do, with the war in full swing. Indulging in slaughter is to be reserved for the enemy, and it’s not as if she really cares about _who_ she’s killing, as long as she gets to go through with it. Fortunately, the Emperor’s Wrath is never short of people to stand in her way, and the chance to carve through them is something Jaesa can always count on.

A chance that will hopefully come soon. Her master’s impatience is all but tangible – the air around her hums with it.

“So I see.” Her arms are crossed and Jaesa reflexively straightens, feeling her gaze sweep over her in fleeting assessment. “You enjoyed yourself?” Her voice is even, but Jaesa can see her tension coiling inward, becoming the honed focus that she so admires – and, in those moments when it’s trained upon her, fears, just a little.

It’s not fear of Rkorya herself. She knows her master will never betray her, discard her when she proves unfit or tiresome – that is one of her new life’s certainties. She’s never quite said as much, but Jaesa _knows_ , sees it every time even just one of the crew is threatened and she flares with protective rage, malice to rival the heat of stars.

Jedi fear attachment, think it makes them weaker and swayed by the trivial whims of those around them, and at first, Jaesa thought the Sith were much the same – revelling in the feeling of the moment, but cutting away each bond when it became too permanent, too _vulnerable_. But Rkorya takes that sentiment and turns each connection into her strength, guards those near her fiercely. So no, she would rather have tossed herself off of the sanctum than seriously punish or injure her apprentice.

On some days, she finds it sweet, a devotion that she strains to match in service and loyalty. But on others, it’s jarring to be cared for, protected, even as she can see her disapproval whenever she comes back from a night out, streaked in sweat and blood. When they train, the difference between them gapes open like a void that can’t be filled, that aches with uncertainty, and she doesn’t know what she can do to make it _better_. She’s opened herself to the dark side, embraced her anger, and yet it’s never enough.

That it troubles Rkorya as much as it does her is a bitter balm – she doesn’t _want_ to be the problem apprentice, forever the weak link. Some part of it might be her master’s fault, even if she is _Sith_ to her bones, but... how much of it is her own?

“You know I always do,” she says, trying to shrug away the doubts. “No news from the fleet yet?”

“If there was, I would have called you back.” The focus remains, unrelenting. “Since you’ve returned already, I thought we might spar.” Jaesa relaxes, breathing out. Sparring is something they can both enjoy – it’s straightforward, ruthless, _fun_. When she had been a padawan, sparring had always been a stiff, stilted thing, all forms that had to be matched perfectly and boundaries strictly adhered to. She was never supposed to go beyond her limits, be tested past what her master thought best.

How things have changed.

“As if I’d pass up a chance for more entertainment.” She tilts her head, stretches her arms out indulgently. There’s nothing like a bit of violence to put them both at ease.

They’ve done this often enough that it almost has the feeling of a ritual, by now. Rkorya deactivates her shield generator – once, Jaesa had been amused at this show of paranoia, before she’d learned just how _necessary_ it was – and shrugs out of her outer robes as Jaesa takes her place in the centre of the room. It’s always odd to realize her master is shorter than she is – her spikes make them barely even – when her presence in the Force is towering, and seeing her unarmoured feels like a gift of trust, a layer of protection peeled away.

This too is a good distraction from thoughts she’d rather not have. The tunic Rkorya wears beneath the rest of her gear leaves her arms bare, and Jaesa watches her muscles shift as she stretches, the way old and newer scars ripple and pull taut. There’s a faded tracery of burns going down her left shoulder, still pale against her red skin – lightning from a Sith, surely, but too old to be Baras’. Maybe she’ll ask about it, some day.

It’s a pleasant diversion, nothing more. There’s no point in voicing her interest when she knows it won’t be reciprocated, and for all Rkorya’s passions, she seems completely dismissive of the physical ones.

Still, she is ferocious, deadly, _powerful,_ and as a Sith apprentice, shouldn’t she admire that power?

“Ready?” Rkorya asks, catching her gaze.

“I always am.”

Then there’s no more space for any further admiring – Rkorya crosses the distance between them in a single smooth movement, the sense of her in the Force crashing down like some abrupt, relentless disaster, and not just a single warrior. Even knowing her opening move, expecting it, Jaesa can’t quite shrug off the leaden weight of limbs that want to freeze up, instincts that say _stop_ and _run_ and _this is death_. She’s no longer a blind, obedient child, though, and instinct had never saved her. It’s grim fury that brings her saber up in time to block, though it’s a bad start, forcing her back a step as Rkorya lands and lashes out again.

She won’t win this bout – she rarely ever does – but it’s exhilarating to be so close to death, again and again and again. Power waits at her fingertips and Jaesa is giddily aware of each breath she takes, each heartbeat, the comfortable strain as she deflects and dodges and flows into every barest gap of an opening.

The Sith Code is right – this is the freest she has ever felt.

At least she has the advantage of reach, but it’s a small advantage when her master doesn’t have the grace to let her use it. The moment she stretches a little too far, Rkorya is there, trying to swat her blocks aside and get within her guard. A twist of her saber, and she wrenches Jaesa’s from her grip, hurling it across the room.

“Let’s speak about your appetites,” she says calmly, for all that they’re both breathing hard now, and Jaesa halts, hesitating in calling her weapon back.

“This... doesn’t seem like the best time, master.” She’s never known her to ruin a fight with _talking_ before.

“On the contrary. You’re clearheaded now, which makes it the best time for this.” Jaesa lets her breath hiss out and pulls her saber back, sweeping it out reflexively for an attack that doesn’t come. Rkorya keeps her distance, watching her with measured intensity, and she _knows_ she won’t let up on this, even with the offer of more violence as a distraction.

“Fine,” she says. “I’m listening.”

A flicker of sharp amusement. “You think I disapprove of you.”

“With respect, master, I _know_ you do. I can feel it. Or did you forget why I’m your apprentice in the first place?” It comes out more heated than she’d planned on, but if they’re going to talk, she might as well be honest. “If this is going to be another lecture on how I should learn _control_ –” Her voice rises, frays – control and composure belong to the _Jedi_ , and it stings each time Rkorya tosses them back at her, as if she’s trying to chain her again.

“You’ve stagnated. You can only gain so much strength from indulging in death alone.” That brings her up short and she pauses, eyes narrowing. “Do you still hunger for it, even now?”

She can’t, won’t, lie to her. “You don’t understand what it’s _like_. Seeing everything about someone, everything that they _are_ , like I’m holding it all in my hands, and then just... snuffing it out myself – there’s nothing like it. It’s so overwhelming... if you could just _feel_ it, you wouldn’t blame me.” She plunges ahead before she can think enough to regret it. “You’re never like this with the others. _They_ don’t have you frowning at them every time they kill.”

“The others,” her master says, almost unbearably calm in the face of that accusation, “are not my apprentices. They also aren’t running away from themselves.” She’s not sure what stings more, the words or the resolute conviction behind them, and it’s easier to be hurt than to dwell on _why_.

“I’m not running from _anything_.”

Rkorya’s dropped her guard as much as she ever does, and Jaesa surges forward to press her advantage in an echo of her master’s favourite move, whipping her polesaber out and down and knowing that this time she’s fast enough, close enough –

This close to her, she feels the momentary flush of Rkorya’s pain before she even sees her blow land, and then her master bats her away, power snaring her in mid-air with frightening ease and throwing her to the side and down before she can try to break loose. The impact cracks her head on the floor and knocks the breath from her lungs, so for a moment she’s too stunned to even consider drawing upon her anger again.

It could have been much worse. By now, Jaesa knows all the ways of choking breath out of the body, how to crush the spine or snap the neck or leave countless fractures when holding someone with the Force, and for all that this is a harsh, definite ending, it is still her master being _merciful_.

By the time her vision stops swimming, Rkorya has knelt down beside her. She watches her warily, trying to pick apart her feelings and find an answer there. There’s the superficial irritation she expected after the attack, a twinge of the earlier pain, and... regret, caution, _hesitance_.

Not emotions she’s used to sensing from her. At least there’s the focus beneath all of it, unrelenting and precise as a laser, or it would have been entirely disorienting.

“I’m sorry,” Rkorya says, which doesn’t exactly help. “When I took you on as my apprentice, I wasn’t ready for it, or for you. I wasn’t... good at this. I’m still not.”

Humility doesn’t suit her, but she doesn’t have the breath to say as much. Besides, interrupting seems a risky move.

“In many ways, this is my mistake. I did not understand what you were doing, or why it didn’t feel right. I let you lie to yourself for far too long.” That gets a surprised, strangled sound out of her. “Violence and bloodshed does not make you Sith. If I have only taught you how to be cruel, then I can’t say much about the example I set.”

“N-no, that’s not – you haven’t been cruel to me. Now, or ever. Not even –” Jaesa bites her tongue and tries to focus on breathing and not saying everything that comes into her head, but it’s too late.

“Not even when it would make it simpler?” Rkorya says, catching the trailing end of her thought. “It would be easier if I was like the Sith you were warned about as a padawan. Or even if I was more like Baras, and cared only about your place in my plans.” She pauses – yet another hesitation, but her gaze is as steady as ever. “But I did hurt you, Jaesa. I forced your master into a situation where he was doomed to fail you when you needed him.”

She hadn’t risked guessing what she had been trying to lead into, but she would have never expected Rkorya to bring up _this_. It had been over a year since all that. What does it matter now?

“He was weak,” she rasps. “And petty, and jealous, and a fool.”

“He betrayed you,” Rkorya continues, as if she hasn’t spoken. So _calm_. Sith shouldn’t be able to sound so composed, even if her master’s anger is just within her reach, like heat at her fingertips. “You trusted him to keep you safe, and because of me, he broke that trust.”

“So what? Then you beat him, because you were better. That’s just how things are.” Saying it shouldn’t _hurt_ when it’s the simple truth. She hasn’t thought about Nomen Karr in a long time, and she doesn’t see the point in reminiscing about him now. Struggling to sit upright, she winces – the bout will likely leave her badly bruised later. “Is... is there a point to this, or are you just getting nostalgic?”

“I killed your parents,” she says, and the razor’s edge of balance Jaesa has clung to for so long wavers. She forgets her bruises in an instant and bows her head, watching her hands clench and loosen as if they belong to someone else.

“Because Baras told you to. You had to listen – you were his apprentice. You obeyed him, just – just as I obey you. Besides, I hadn’t seen them for years. We just spoke on the holo, sometimes –” Even that brings up memories she’s done her best to forget and ignore. “It doesn’t matter. They’re dead, and you killed them. I know that you would have done it quickly. They didn’t... they didn’t suffer. So,” she says, not daring to look up, “are we done now?”

Again, she feels that jarring reluctance from Rkorya’s mind – from the Sith who got up after nearly being crushed to death, who has never once flinched away from duty or battle – before she kneels down. “They may not have suffered much, but you have. I did not give you a chance to grieve. For that, I apologize.”

Jaesa stumbles over what might be a fitting excuse, some way to deflect away from prying into people who are dead and gone. “So – so what? You’re _Sith_. We both are.” She searches for the anger she’s wrapped herself in so easily since that day, but for once it evades her. “So you can stop trying to _care_.” To her horror, her voice trembles, and she can feel her eyes start to sting. She hasn’t cried since her first days as a padawan – what is she, a _child?_

“To be Sith is to care, Jaesa,” Rkorya tells her, voice rough. “To care so much that you kill for it. There is only passion, but passion is not just anger and hate. It is this, too.”

“But it _hurts_. It makes me weaker. I don’t care about who I once was – she might as well be dead.” She can’t even convince herself right now, and she curls her hands tight until her nails dig into her palms.

Rkorya shifts, and then lays a hand on her shoulder, the contact startling her enough into looking up. “This grief is yours,” she says. “As is this pain. It will strengthen you, if you let it.” Her gaze bores into her, golden eyes alight. “But first you must allow yourself to feel it. _All_ of it.”

It’s easy for her to say. Rkorya seems like she’s never once been uncertain, never suffered any pain she couldn’t recover from or push through, never fled from the person she once was. And why should she? She was born and raised to be Sith, had been taught duty and violence since she could hold a weapon. Jaesa is sure that if she looks back for too long, she’ll just – collapse. Shatter.

“What if I can’t?” she asks. “What if I do, and I... change my mind, and turn back?” The Jedi Code feels so stifling now, but at the same time, she could push all of this away again – the memories and the pain and every conflicted feeling.

“Then that is your choice,” Rkorya says, without even a second’s hesitation. “Made wholeheartedly. But remember – even as a padawan, you saw something that led you to trust me, despite everything.” The grip on her shoulder tightens for a moment in reassurance. “I doubt that would change so easily. But if it does, know this: I will not leave you, Jaesa. Not unless you wish me to.”

That shakes her almost more than everything else, and she chokes back a sound that is almost definitely a sob. There is something sad and absurd about this; the Sith who hunted her down and destroyed her old life being the one person who has been the most faithful to her, who wants to let her _choose_. Maybe she shouldn’t be grateful, but she is.

“Thank you,” she says, and means it. It takes a long moment to get her voice back under control, and she scrubs at her eyes, though Rkorya doesn’t comment on her tears. “I think I... need some time to think.”

“Of course. Take as much time as you need.” She rises to her feet and offers her hand, and after a second Jaesa takes it, letting her help her up. Rkorya is standoffish about physical contact, and twice in such a short time feels a little like a gift, one she’s not sure she deserves.

“I... we’ll talk later,” she says, and waits for her master’s nod before she can turn to go. Behind her, she can feel a swell of emotion, and it takes a moment for her to identify it as quiet but unmistakable pride.

Like the sun, it heats her back and warms her steps as she leaves.


End file.
